India oust Bangladesh in penalty shoot-out
Nepal to face India in SAFF U-19 final
Sports Reporter
Bangladesh eliminated from the SAFF Under-19 Football Championship when they suffered a 4-3 defeat in tie-breaker in the semifinal match yesterday.
Held at the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) academy ground in Kathmandu, the match ended in a goalless draw during the regulation 90 minutes time. Then the referee called for a penalty shoot-out to break the deadlock. Bangladesh and India converted three goals each out of first five shots.
India will now take on Nepal in the final. Nepal sent a hard working Afghanistan packing with a 3-2 victory in the other semifinal.
After the scheduled penalty shoot-out was locked on 3-3, Indian captain Daniel converted the Sudden Death kick but Rahmat Meah shattered the last hopes of Bangladesh taking a sky high shot.
Masuk Meah Jony and Rohit Sarkar marked the target in the successive shots when Indian Lal Ram began the tie-breaker with a miss. Despite leading with 2-1, Bangladesh forwards Ibrahim and Emon failed to score and Indian boys took the lead with scoring in the third and fourth shot while Mannaf Rabbi raised the hope again scoring in the fifth shot, as an Indian players fifth effort hit the side post to lock the tie-breaker on 3-3.
However, the Indian boys played with almost full authority in the 90 minutes game and also could win the match in the scheduled time but some of their efforts were denied by Bangladesh goalkeeper Anisur Rahman and most of the time they were trying with long range shots.
Bangladesh, who played under pressure in the maximum time, could not force opponents for a single corner against eights and were on a very few times went for organised move.
In fact, from the beginning they looked very fragile in ball controlling, man marking and also made plenty of miss passes, which were turned to be dangerous for the team.
In fact the performance of Bangladesh team frustrated the fans. They tried to raid the Indian fort on a number of occasions. But they failed to break the final hurdle. Unfortunately most of the Bangladesh lads looked to be tired and were not fit enough to play full 90 minutes game.
